Process-induced damage is becoming a very serious concern for semiconductor device manufacturer's. Such damage accounts for device degradations and lower yields. One type of process-induced damage is charge-induced damage. Charge-induced damage can occur during plasma etch and plasma-enhanced deposition processes (collectively referred to as plasma charging damage), ash, and ion implantation. Charge-induced damage is becoming particularly important due to: the scaling down of gate oxide thicknesses and channel length with succeeding technologies; increasing levels of metallization; and the advent of high density plasma sources for etching and deposition.
Charge collection in processes that use photoresist (more specifically, non-conductive photoresist) masking, such as etch processes, may occur along the edge of
In charge-induced damage, the charge collected in the antenna stresses the oxide of a device. More specifically, in a MOSFET structure, the charge collected on the antenna stresses the gate oxide of the MOSFET, thereby inducing stress-related degradation of the MOSFET. This stress-related degradation may include: shortening the lifetime of the device, increasing the gate leakage of the device, or shifting the threshold voltage of the device.